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Slip slap

I am finding that a lot of things in life are fun “in theory.” Things may sound really fun and great and all that, but when it comes down to it, they really aren’t. Take Ice Cream for example. Sometimes I will get a real hankering for a bowl (carton) of Ben and Jerry’s Phish food ice cream. I will go to the store and buy in and dive in with a spoon…only to realize it makes me feel sick about two bites into it. I may finish it off, just to avoid ‘wasting money’ but…it is not fun or enjoyable.

I took the kids sledding today. We are up in the snowy mountains, so that’s what you do. At least, that’s what we thought we were supposed to do. We bought snow boots and sleds, gloves and hats, and long winter socks. We were outfitted! It might seem extreme, but I remember all too well the few times I went sledding as a child. We didn’t have warm snow boots or ‘sledding gear.’ We would put our feet in plastic bags to try and keep the snow from soaking our shoes. If we could stay a bit dry, we wouldn’t freeze so badly. It usually didn’t work and my feet were completely frozen within five minutes of arriving at the snow. It was no fun. I wanted my kids to have fun without freezing off any important body parts.

Unfortunately, and not even included in small print on the snow boots, having all the gear does not guarantee fun on the hills. As soon as we arrived at the sledding hills, one child started puking. It was probably carsickness, but it was puking never the less. Another child informed me as soon as we arrived that he was just ‘not into’ the whole sledding thing. He spent his time checking the surrounding woods for signs of SlenderMan. (no sighting, thank goodness). The other child in attendance did actually get into the sledding and had a great time. You might think that I said, ‘heck with you all!’ and jumped a sled and went to town. Well….not quite.

There is something about sitting at the top of a snowy hill with a small plastic dish looking up at you expectantly that makes you (me) question your (my) mortality. Although my sister and her husband and most all the kids were able to make it down the snowy slope without breaking any bones or dying, I had my doubts.

Let’s look back….this is the girl that fell off a straight sidewalk and landed on a piece of glass. This is also the girl that slipped on straight sidewalk and busted her knee open….which took three and a half months to heal. Wouldn’t you question any sort of dare devil activities if you were me?

I did go down one slope….I sat behind my daughter in our plastic toboggan. You might think I found my courage after a while. What actually happened is my daughter found a group of boys to flirt with. I hiked a mountain to subtly chaperone and had no steam left to make it down walking.